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What probably happened here is depressingly common in early-stage startups. Someone finds an open source tool that does 80% of what they need, forks it, strips
by saadn92 6mo ago
What probably happened here is depressingly common in early-stage startups. Someone finds an open source tool that does 80% of what they need, forks it, strips the branding, and then ships it. Nobody thinks about the license because the company is in "move fast" mode and there's no process for it yet.
Sure, the Apache 2.0 allows this, but the mistake is that when someone asked "is this based on SimStudio?" the answer was "we built it ourselves" instead of "yes, it's a fork, here's what we added." It went from a fixable attribution oversight to a credibility problem. You can retroactively add a LICENSE file, but can't take the lie back.
- tikhonj 6mo agoI wonder how much of that is posturing (less charitably, lying to outsiders) and how much is the organization effectively lying to itself. Both are indictment of today's ambient startup culture, and I'm not sure which is ultimately worse.
- nickvec 6mo agoBased on DeepDelve's recent follow-up article, I would assume the former. https://deepdelver.substack.com/p/delve-fake-compliance-as-a-service-98a https://deepdelver.substack.com/p/delve-fake-compliance-as-a...
- redanddead 6mo agothis is nuts
- bavell 6mo agoWow that's bad. Unsure if this is an outlier or typical for YC companies.
- unknownx113 6mo agosadly this behaviour has become largely encouraged by YC
- nikanj 6mo agoEvery layer of the organization tells a more rosy version of the truth up the chain of command. The programmer might tell the PM that they're running Apache software with the serials filed off, but by the time that filters up the chain to the CEO / Board, the product is "fully proprietary and 100% built in-house"
- GorbachevyChase 6mo agoThis is why I hope AI will destroy the entire SaaS market. These people should be selling used cars or life insurance and have no access to finance.
- agency 6mo agoI'm sure all the vibe coded slop that eats the SaaS market will be better about license attribution.
- oliwarner 6mo agoI hear what you're saying but I still think I'd prefer LLM-orchestrated software (using third-party dependencies) to closed source SaaS made by developers who can't even adhere to software licenses. It's a level of Junior Dev Energy that's unforgivable.
- devin 6mo agoYou're going to get both. Lucky you!
- mememememememo 6mo agoGood luck, you are now a site operator of a non-core business function. I prefer the SaaS but just do some vendor DD. If you absolutely can't trust any SaaS it is equivalent to you cannot trust any vendor to do anything as they may fuck it up. You can solve that with DD.
- oliwarner 6mo agoThe choice I was offering myself there was specifically between a bad developer abusing open source software and something vibed together to replace that specific function that uses the open source app within its licence. The assumption being those are the only two options. Obviously a false dichotomy for most real life scenarios but the point being that I'd rather do it myself (any which way) than trust a bad developer, doubly so for customer-facing operations. If there's another provider offering that function, sure, but let's talk rupees.
- tptacek 6mo agoWait, the thing we're talking about is Apache 2.0?
- flexagoon 6mo agoYes, so it explicitly requires source attribution
- aurareturn 6mo agoMany companies do not want to deal with open source and want support and custom features. I personally think you’re underestimating the value these companies bring.
- deleted 6mo ago[deleted]
- jmspring 6mo agoIt also reveals how shallow the vetting YC does. This is both on delve and YC initially accepting them. There has been an acceleration of YC companies getting funding and a general decline in quality.